The invention relates generally to identification systems for catheters, and more particularly to identification systems that enable the most effective or optimal catheter for use in a procedure to be selected prior to utilizing the catheter in the actual procedure.
Catheters are used in an increasing number of medical procedures to evaluate various conditions of the patient with which the catheter is utilized. These catheters are inserted into the patient and positioned at the desired location where the catheter can be utilized to treat the patient in the prescribed manner.
While many different numbers and/or configurations of catheters can potentially be utilized for a particular procedure, such as an interventional cardiac procedure, the anatomy of the individual patient on which the procedure is to be performed often differs from patient to patient. As such, a catheter that may perform well when performing the procedure on one patient may not be useful when performing the same or a similar procedure on a different patient. Thus, when one catheter is found not to work in a procedure as a result of difference in the anatomy of the particular patient, the clinician has to remove the initial catheter used and insert a second, differently shaped catheter to attempt to accommodate the anatomy of the particular patient to perform the procedure.
This process can be repeated multiple times in order to arrive at a catheter having a shape complementary to the patient anatomy in order to perform the procedure. As such, selecting the appropriate catheter shape and size for various procedures, such as cardiac catheterization procedures, relative to the patient's anatomy is challenging, and potentially wasteful in catheters, as well as physician time. Further, the repeated catheter insertions and removals to achieve the proper catheter configuration for the patient's anatomy can increase the chances of:                a. potential for injury in the ascending aorta and the coronary orifices;        b. potential for “liberating” plaque material from the arterial wall with subsequent embolization into brain or periphery;        c. potential for mechanical injury at the arterial access site; or        d. overall adverse event rate of the procedure.        
In order to mitigate these issues, certain prior art attempts have been made to reduce the need for insertion of multiple catheters to accommodate the anatomy of a particular patient. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,996,063 and US Patent Application Publication No. US2004/0077942, a three-dimensional (3D) image of the patient anatomy is reconstructed from scans taken of the area of interest. This 3D image is then utilized with a catheter that can be viewed in conjunction with the 3D image on the display in order to guide the catheter along the desired path through the tissue represented in the 3D image during the procedure.
However, even with the ability to use the 3D image to guide the catheter through the tissue shown in the image, due to differences in the structure of the anatomy of a patient, on many occasions it is still necessary to remove a catheter of a particular type for substitution by a catheter with another configuration in order to successfully navigate the desired path through the patient.
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop an identification system and method for identifying an optimal catheter configuration that can successfully navigate the desired pathway through the individual patient anatomy prior to insertion of the catheter into the patient.